Dylan Chen, Matthew Vandenboom, Kevin Reece,

Conrad Kiel, Devin Hall, William Harter, and Emilio Salvador

(Swarm in red and Stingers in blue)

Another incredibly successful season for Okaloosa STEMM Academy

FIRST LEGO League Robotics!

Both STEMM Academy FIRST LEGO League (FLL) robotics teams, the STEMM Stingers (veteran team), and STEMM Swarm (rookie team), advanced through the season to compete in one of the highest levels of competition in the FLL world! The Stingers and the Swarm engineered, core valued and innovated their way through qualifying, regional, and state competitions, to cap off an amazing season at the University of Arkansas’s FLL Razorback Invitational. Their experience at the international invitational afforded them the opportunity to learn from and share with teams from all over the world! This is the second year that the STEMM Academy FLL teams have advanced to this impressive level. A huge thank you goes out to our school, district, and community sponsors!!

With High 5s and Admiration,

STEMM Stingers & STEMM Swarm

P.S. This year’s rookies will become next year’s veterans, so if your student is interested in becoming a STEMM Swarm team member please do not hesitate to contact our FLL lead coach, Jennifer Kiel at stemmfll@gmail.com for more information.

For the second straight year, the STEMM Academy's veteran FIRST LEGO LEAGUE robotics team, the STEMM Stingers, is headed to the State Championship! The school's rookie FLL team, the STEMMM Swarm, was not going to let the Stingers have all the fun, and earned themselves a shot at the State Championship as well! Both teams flexed their engineering and programming muscles as they competed agains 14 other top teams in the NWF region at the NWF FLL Regional Championship that was held on February 18th on the NWFSC Campus.

Teams had to place in the top seven to advance to the State Championship and the STEMM Academy teams appeared to do it with ease. The Stingers placed as the overall number two Champs, earning themselves the opporunity to compete at the Arkansas Razorback Invitational, an international competion against 71 champion FLL teams from around the world. To top things off, the Stingers were also nominated for the Global Innovation Award for their outstanding project idea.

The FTC Robotics Team Tech Turtles competed in the North East Florida Regional Championship. They placed second in the competition and first in the overall ranking. They won the Control Award for their use of sensors and software to enhance their robot's functionality in the field.

Both STEMM FLL robotics teams, the STEMM Stingers and the STEMM Swarm, competed in their NWF regional qualifying competition on 28 Jan. The teams displayed outstanding performances ina ll areas of the competition, to include robot design, core values, project, and robot game. Out of the 20 teams competing, STEMM teams earned 2 of only 7 spots available to advance to the Regional Championship. In addition to the Regional bid, the STEMM Stingeresw brought home the trophy for Top Project.